The invention relates to a method for delivering a shipment by an unmanned transport device to a receiving container for said shipment, the method comprising the step of moving the unmanned transport device towards the receiving container on the basis of geographical co-ordinates. The invention additionally relates to the unmanned transport device and also the receiving container, which are each designed to carry out the method.
As a result of increasing freight traffic, such as general cargo and grouped cargo shipping via truck transports or container transports by sea freight or air freight and the transport of parcels with use for example of e-commerce as well as online mail-order services, the number of goods in transit and in particular of parcel shipments has significantly increased. Whereas ordering can be done independently of conventional shop opening hours, the order must still be delivered as a shipment to the customer by means of conventional delivery procedures, for example by postmen or, in the case of parcel shipments, by motorised delivery vehicles. Here, an attempt to deliver the shipment to the customer is generally made just once per day. If the customer is not home at the time of attempted delivery, for example because the customer, as an employed individual, is at work, either an attempt is made to deliver the shipment another time, or the shipment is stored at a branch of the delivery company for collection by the customer.
Picking up the shipment stored in this way at the branch of the delivery company, however, frequently poses a new challenge to the customer, since the shipment generally has to be picked up within the opening times of the branch, during which the customer is at work. Alternatively, it is indeed possible to have the shipment delivered to collection points, such as automatic parcel pick-up machines, such as DHL Packstations or Amazon Lockers. However, these are not located in the direct vicinity of the home address of the addressee, and therefore are not located in the immediate area of disposition of the addressee and require the addressee to make a dedicated journey in order to receive the shipment.
There are also solutions that offer shipments to be delivered to a “safe place” on the addressee's property, as offered for example in Germany by DHL, or to be delivered to a designated individual (not the addressee), for example a neighbour. The delivery types, however, are characterised in that protection of the delivered goods, i.e. the shipment, for example against the weather or theft when left outside cannot be fully ensured, and if the designated individual is not at home either, the shipment cannot be successfully delivered.
To summarise, this means that although the ordering of a product through the Internet is extremely flexible, the delivery of the product as a parcel shipment to the customer is still characterised by methods that cannot ensure that the shipment can always be provided directly at the intended delivery location without access risks, and therefore new methods for prompt, more flexible delivery of shipments are desired.